The geography of Abadan and its location between and in close proximity to many different rivers makes it a hard sight to pinpoint. Some of the available textual references can only be speculated to denote the city or the area, while references to the name, in form of ‘Abbadan, only start from the early Islamic centuries and continue sporadically until the pre-modern period.

This was the nucleus of what would become the city of Abadan, as the site of the refinery was commonly called by those working there as well as by the British in their reports. It was this Persianized name that became commonly used and accepted and became the new city’s official name in 1935.